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Wednesday, 27 July 2011

I was planning to catch up today as I finish work early. But when I got home I fell asleep on the couch for 3 hrs and although I am now awake the fog in my brain is not clearing. I have read Tuesday's prompt and it sounds sooooooo good. I want my brain to be working at full capacity for that one, so it will have to wait. :-) I am not even going to read the prompt for Wednesday!!!!

I always have wonderful plans but they don't always come together. Never mind, they will later. I have enjoyed sitting here catching up on my blog reading though. And some of the other participants of this class have posted some lovely things. Some of my favourites so far are Mandy, Dolly, and Karen. They have each posted something that caught my eye. There are so many doing this class that I am sure there are lots of other great posts, but I am not following everyone as time is not on my side.

**update** I finally had time to check out the pintrest board that two of the other participants have started all about Explore. It is AMAZING and full of inspiration. I love the google map envelopes! I have deliberately avoided looking at pintrest as there is a slight (ok maybe better than slight!) chance that I will get addicted. oops!

I hope you are doing a better job keeping up than I am, but this is all I am typing today as I keep making mistakes! LOL

The start of a new week and I am already behind! I know that it is now Wednesday and I am only doing Monday's prompt, but hey, that happens :-)

Where do I sleep? In a lovely king (super king in some countries) size bed with a soft feather quilt.

Where do I sit? Not many places at all really. I LOVE my big old blue chair that sits in the morning sun. Other than that, I spend most of my day standing and occasionally sitting at my very messy desk ... it seems to be the dumping ground for goods!

Where do I stand? At work! I stand and walk most of the day helping customers. So I wear very comfy shoes and walk on a pillow of air :-)

Unfortunately my life right now is made up of work, work and more work. It hasn't always been this way and it will definitely NOT stay this way. I place more value on being at home with the ones I love than working. I work to live, I DO NOT live to work!

Sunday, 24 July 2011

I haven't completed a project in a long while that brought me such joy. I am extremely glad I jumped on this boat even though I almost missed it. It isn't too late for you either ... just click on the banner above and join the class with Shimelle and explore!

I wanted my weekend project to reflect some of the inner exploring I have done over the past week. I didn't want to do a layout and then put it in an album, so I decided to try something I usually avoid and worked on an 'off-the-page' project. I have a beautiful old range by Sassafras Lass (that I haven't found a use for yet since I unpacked it) called 'Life is Beautiful Felicity', and I used one of the collage papers for this project. Once again I am fighting against bad light so these photos aren't great. I will replace them when I can.

I cut some two inch squares from chipboard and then covered each square with a piece of the paper. Because I cut the paper squares from a collage sheet I got to use all of the different papers from the pack and only cut up one sheet. Now I still get to use the rest later! Once I had each piece covered I glued them all to a base piece of chipboard and lightly sanded the edges. Each row also has a non-square (rectangle LOL) just to mix it up a bit. I then made embellishments and decorated it with sayings that I had written in my playbook. Here are a few close ups.

The big flower I cut from an old aubergine satin blouse using the Tim Holtz tattered floral die. I then singed the edges using the flame on the gas stove (NOT recommended, but I didn't have any other form of flame!). They then melted and curled. I added some fibers and a rose to complete it. I had to add a photo of myself somewhere on the project as it is all about myself. So I stamped the bubble bath from a Papermania Tulip stamp set and cut off Tulip's head. I coloured it and added sparkle to the bubbles with a Sakura clear stardust pen, and attached my head. The best place to be, submerged in a warm bubble bath with a glass of bubbly!

I have to admit it, I really struggled with the nine circles in a grid challenge. They just wouldn't work on this project. I tried pearls but they ended up in a heart shape. I tried flowers and they ended up in the bin! So I left the idea behind completely and just had fun. This project now sits where I can see it (and admire it LOL) and remember all of the inner thinking I have done this week.

Friday, 22 July 2011

I laughed when I read the start of todays prompt. Even though I only just posted yesterday's prompt earlier I had already planned what I was going to say. So while I was rambling on about a circle being perfection I was already heading into today's prompt! So how do I define perfection?

Perfection is a circle!

Perfection is fresh baked bread while it is still warm.

Perfection is "A place for everything and everything in its place".

Perfection is children happily playing together.

Perfection is the setting and rising of the sun in all its splendid colours.

Perfection is a peaceful morning reading.

Perfection is spending time with loved ones having fun and laughing.

I am not completely a perfectionist, I am also a realist. I strive to do everything to the best of my abilities. If that means hanging a picture on the wall, it WILL be hung straight. If that means organising my kitchen to be functional, it WILL be organised and labeled. If that means creating a page for my album, it WILL be done to my liking and taste. I will always do the best that I can do, but if it isn't someone else's idea of perfection, that will just have to do regardless.

I had an amazing Social Studies teacher in high school. He used to say that if we aimed for the stars and landed on the moon we were still doing ok. He was right. Aim for the very best but be happy with what you end up accomplishing, if you know you did your very best then you are doing OK.

My children seem to be going through a new stage of annoying each other. This school holidays seems to be seeing the end of that trait and this photo was the first time they had done ANYTHING together without a disagreement in a long time. They are baking 'Lemon Diva Cupcakes' which turned out to be divine!

There is nothing wrong with aiming for perfection, as long as you are happy with what you eventually accomplish. Be a perfectionist with a healthy dose of realism.

We take many journeys during our life. In my very first blog post I suggested that life was like a mighty river. I still view life that way, but in todays prompt I wanted to explore my journey for this year. So while I sat making my circle embellishments I thought about my year so far. Until I got completely sidetracked with thoughts about circles.

Circles are perfect. They are my favourite shape. They have no beginning or end and continue to infinity (and beyond if you are a Toy Story fan LOL). Circles are summed up in one word, perfection! Quite interesting that in the prompt where we consider the journeys we have taken, we are also playing with circles!

So I took some printed maps, scraps of paper, a brown pen and some glossy accents and started playing. And in that small journey learnt something new too ... don't print maps on regular (cheap) printer paper if you want to punch it out!!!!! So I gave up on the maps and found a map stamp to use, I will save the maps for my playbook.

My trusty old Cricut cut out the wobbly circular shapes and I layered and played until I got something that wasn't completely bad and left it there. All the while my mind jumped about thinking about the perfection of circles and the journeys I had taken.

This year my journey is about hope. Hope that the future will turn out alright and that all of the rapids we face will be worth the risk. It was a very therapeutic circle craft session!

Now it was time to add all my stuff to my playbook. While I was eagerly awaiting Thursday's prompt due to the time difference, I took the time to start filling in my pages. Here they are so far.

Inside front cover

About me :-)

Maps!

Top of journey page as journaling is personal :-)

As it was 9pm when the next prompt finally came through I will not be reading it until tomorrow, so I will remain one day behind. **sigh**

Chipper

P.S. This will only make sense to one person ... If you are still reading my blog we will ALL miss you :-) All the best for everything in the future and I hope you continue to be alright. My prayers are with you.

Wednesday, 20 July 2011

I have had many adventures in my life. I moved half way around the world twice in my first five years of life. As soon as I could I began to explore things on my own from rock climbing to world travel. I have explored new food experiences, new business adventures and many other new things.

But my greatest adventure is my children. They are sweet & precious, pain & great joy all rolled into one. Although I enjoy every moment of their lives, I can't wait to see how each of them will find their own path in the world. I pray that it will be smoother than mine, but just as rewarding in the end.

I went to buy a postcard for todays class, but it was pouring with rain and I didn't have any change. The thought of a postcard with a cute little native animal on it was not appealing and as there really wouldn't really have been much else to choose from I gave up and made my own. My second attempt was tolerable and so I wrote my message on the back, attached a commemorative royal wedding stamp and tomorrow I will post it to myself.

I worked with scraps again and on my desk I found a piece of photo paper that I had alcohol inked to try out a new colour scheme. I added a bit more copper and muted it a little and then stamped it with a travel themed stamp. A added three words stamped along one side (remember, discover, experience) and heat embossed it with tarnished gold. Note to self: not all photo paper likes to be embossed and it sometimes bubbles!

I then used a double sided sticky sheet to stick it to some Bazzill Bling so that it wouldn't come apart in the post. You can see that orange made an appearance again today. Must be all those scraps on my desk! Thankfully only in a piece of card I placed under the postcard for the photograph.

It was very interesting to contemplate all the adventures in my life. I wonder what the next prompt will bring? I am going to have to wait until tomorrow now as it is late and my prompt still hasn't arrived. There are times when the time zone difference is a slight pain.

Tuesday, 19 July 2011

I have enjoyed every Shimelle class I have ever participated in, but the description of this one didn't instantly jump out and grab me. I am very time poor at the moment and I just wasn't sure. So I put it out of my mind and wouldn't have given it a second thought until this morning as I was blog surfing on my day off. I kept coming across blogs with pictures of 'playbooks' and all sorts of self-portraits. Every post spoke of how they were surprised by the first prompt and how much each participant was looking forward to the coming month. Well that was the final straw ... I signed up!

This is the first class that I will do 'live' with the rest of the class. I am looking forward to a little bit of interaction with other participants. I plan on doing each day in as much depth as the day allows and on my day off each week, fill it out a bit more. Due to the time difference I should get the prompts each afternoon for that day, so that shouldn't prove to cause any difficulties as I only create at night anyway! I am starting one day after everyone else, however I should be caught up by tomorrow.

Here is my completed playbook. I found an old Maya Road acrylic album in my cupboard that I had attempted to alcohol ink. It wasn't going to plan so I must have shoved it in the cupboard and forgot about it (as I do!). Thankfully I had only inked the first page, so I turned the rest into this mini album.

I used scraps that were on my desk and so for the second time in one day I USED ORANGE! I think the there might be a blue moon tonight! But I digress. I have precut and inked the pages for the different layers to help save time on my busier days. The wonderful thing about ring bound albums is that you can add pages anywhere at any time. When I have completely finished this mini album I will tie ribbons and embellishments to the rings, but for now they would only get in the way.

The first prompt was a little challenging but at least I had a heads up that it was coming. To take a self portrait in a mirror and include your camera. Not my favourite thing to do, but we are 'exploring' new things. So I bring to you, me ...

It is my day off today and I am not getting 'dolled' up for any reason what so ever. This is me when I am at my most comfortable. In my PJ's and robe in the middle of winter. I deliberately took the photo in low light to create shadows and only a hint of me :-) Now I am off to write my journal entry and I think I will tackle today's prompt tomorrow as it is late here.

Join me on my personal adventure, exploring the world around me.
Chipper

When I first saw the sketch for this week I was stumped. But what threw me wasn't the sketch, but the orange (as it appeared on my screen) on the layout. Orange is my LEAST favourite colour and everytime I thought about this layout that was all I saw. So I cleared my mind of the layout and looked just at the sketch. Here is is ...

I am running out of printed photos so there were very few for me to choose from. The only ones I could find were all landscape photos so I turned the sketch and started playing. Here is my version of the sketch ...

Under The Deep Blue Sea

When we were in Florida we spent one day at Discovery Cove. These photos were taken with a disposable underwater camera. I love how blue the photos are as they really make me feel like I am under the sea. After struggling for so long with this sketch because of orange, I think it is very funny that I ended up using orange on this page! How ironic LOL

All of our photos from Discovery Cove are going to eventually be in one album and most of them have the same teal blue colour in them and these wonderful vinyl thickers by American Crafts. The paper here is a very old one by Crate Paper (back when they felt like linen). I had two chipboard hearts that I had painted for another project and didn't use, so I sprayed them some more and stamped the bigger one of the two so that I could use them here.

I added twine, beads and a shell that I found in my stash. This layout came together quite quickly once I got started and I am really happy with it. I loved this pool but it was the coldest one in the whole park so we popped in and out of it frequently. I love to swim and it was very relaxing that day as all three kids wore life vests that helped to stop them sinking. They were able to snorkel at the surface and still enjoy the thrill of swimming with fish.

There isn't any journalling on this page as I have far too much to say to fit it on this page. When that happens I like to add a 6x12 page protector into my album and extended my page that way for the story.

Monday, 18 July 2011

My whole family plays an online game via Facebook. I know it might sound crazy to you, but we have lots of fun. It is like an interactive board game that never ends! We all play together in the same alliance that has it's own private chat room, and we all have a name other than our own. Through this game I have met lots of new people, some of whom I would now call friends. They all know we are related and that the kids are just kids. Most of you won't understand how this can happen, but it really isn't all that different from the blog-o-sphere. On here we make connections to other people all the time, and at times we share some of THE most special moments in our lives with complete strangers.

Our alliance is currently at 'war' with another and to help us defend effectively an online phone chat was set up. So out came the microphone for the computer this evening and it was very strange to hear the voices of people you had spoken to for ages via 'chat', but in real life ... I wonder if there is ever a time when the imagined voice of someone ever really matches the reality? It has been great and of course the kids clamored to have a turn talking to these friends. And what did they say when their time came? "Hello" ... and then they doubled up with laughter and couldn't talk anymore.

I would have thought that as children of the digital age, they would have slid right into this new development. But I guess children will always be children, and that is the beauty of it! I remember when they each started to talk on the phone. The boys both wanted to know what Grandma was doing IN the phone and why she wouldn't come out. But The Princess only ever knew her Grandparents voices via the phone and just never talked back to them. (Maybe that is why she is the shiest of the three?) No matter how old they are children seem to all react the same. At the end of it even I was having trouble not laughing!

Saturday, 16 July 2011

This is the quiet part of my fortnight for blogging. A midnight crop, lots of work and more wedding invites has meant that I have not been near my computer for two days. But I did find time to create :-) I feel much better after my cathartic release of earlier today and am ready to share with you two layouts I did this week in a few stolen moments. As I scrap and play mostly at night, you will have to forgive the photo quality. It seems to be a world wide fact that there is NO natural daylight at night time ... quite rude actually as that is when I craft! LOL

I am still working through our Disney trip and will probably be doing those photos until I am old and grey. I was reading a local craft magazine this week and one of the articles was about using your punches on layouts. A friend and I were discussing this and although she often used her border punches, I seem to forget that I have them! So I challenged myself to use at least three in a layout, just because I could. Here is the final result ...

Old Prima IOD papers

This was another Rainforest Cafe photo and this layout asks The Princess "Why do you always order mac & cheese?". For some reason The Princess almost always ordered mac & cheese for every meal! But she enjoyed the novelty and got to sample some of the best in Florida! I used FOUR border lunches, a decorative cutting blade, my Cricut, AND my cuttllebug all in this layout! True to using up all my old papers, this was made with some very old Prima papers back when they were Iron Orchid Designs, but I did combine them with new Prima flowers and a few roses.

I also made an accompanying 6x12 page that contains the story of that cafe. The 6x12 side laying next to this page is similar to this, and the other side is very 'boy' as it celebrates The Thinker's love of RIBS!

This week I finished the LAST Rainforest Cafe photo. It was a group table shot and I really wanted to have some sort of leaf foilage in it to reflect the ceiling of the cafe. I brought home a new Craft Concepts leaf embossing folder and started with that. I also had lots of fun with my sewing machine on the page. (I really enjoyed this week of crafting, can you tell?)

Basic Grey 'Urban Prairie'

I have still to unpack the bobbins for my sewing machine and it is currently threaded with black. Luckily that was the colour I wanted (I really must find those bobbins!). I used a fancy stitch for the outside and a regular straight stitch for the leaf motif. I should have gone over the leaves a few times to make them stand out more, but I fixed that with a bit of green marker.

The embossed leaves were put through the cuttlebug and then I inked with Distress Ink 'peeled paint' to darken the raised parts. I then cut out random clusters and leaves to use on my page. I rather like the effect. The story is told in detail later on, but I wanted to highlight our favourite part of this dining experience on this page. I put the white letter stickers I wanted onto my teflon mat and then inked them all with the same Distress Ink to make them green. Then I placed them on my layout to spell out a sentence. I also did that for my title and combined it with felt Thickers.

I had so much fun with this page and it really reflects the fun we had at the restaurant. The best part of the meal were the 'thunderstorms'. Every 22min the place came alive with flickering lights, thunder and crazy animals. The noise was deafening and the kids loved every minute of it. This restaurant was a wonderful place to cool off after a VERY hot morning at The Animal Kingdom. I would recommend it as a must have experience no matter where you live (there is also one in London).

I have a confession to make ... well not really a confession, just more information about me. I own a papercraft store. "Wonderful!" you might say, but life is not always sparkly in papercraft world. It is just like any other business with ups and downs and customers you dream of bopping! (only sometimes!) I had lost all passion for anything to do with paper which is why I started this blog. I needed an outlet without judgment.

I recently moved back to a place I never really intended to live in again, and it seems that because of that one reason alone, everything I didn't like is emphasized ten times over. I should have learned to never say "never again", as that is always the place we are meant to go! I owned a craft store in our previous home and we decided to do it again here together, but on a much larger scale. There is nothing wrong with the business sense of this decision, only with the people I interact with everyday. I was viewing the people in this place with the rose tinted glasses of nostalgia. I should have known better.

Yes, I own a papercraft store. No, that does not make me a wonderful scrapbooker or cardmaker. I am just like everyone else ... I LOVE to craft and as I come from a business background, owning a store is a natural progression of that. Here, I am constantly asked "How many times have you been published?", "May I see your albums, as I must be able to learn from them!", "You didn't spend much on that layout" (here it is normal amongst the scrapbooking elite to spend over $15 on each layout!), and all sorts of nonsense like this. If anyone ever sees my layouts I get that raised eyebrow response that means "This is what you do? Why do you own a store?". So in a very short space of time, I began to hate paper, inks, sparkles and anything to do with any papercraft of any kind. Isn't it amazing how much peoples comments affect us?

So I decided to ignore all of them, and I went back to the one thing I knew I loved. If you were to ask me who I admire most in the scrapbooking industry, it would be Shimelle. I have loved her style since I first saw a layout by her in a magazine a long time ago. The clincher was a layout Shimelle once did featuring her Docs (Doc Martin shoes). That was the first year I voted for her in a magazine asking for your favourite scrapbooker. I do not know Shimelle, but I have had the privledge of meeting her and that was very exciting for me, especially as I don't have very many idols. I love that she encourages you to be yourself and tell your story, whatever that may be for you. The best thing I did was take a step back from all the negativity I am surrounded with and start reading her blog again.

And now I am inspired to keep going and just be myself. Yes, I love to play with paper. No, not every experiment works. But each layout is part of who I am, even the ones I don't really like! I am glad I did Shimelle's 'Blogging for Scrapbookers' online class. It is never to late to join up and it is lots of fun. I feel like I have an outlet to be myself whenever I may choose to blog something. I joined two other classes of Shimelle's in the past 18 months but didn't end up doing anything other than printing the prompts. I am now ready to go back and do them. I WANT TO CREATE, even if I am the only one who likes the finished product. I got that raised eyebrow response last night at one of the bi-monthly 6hr crops I run at the store. I wanted to hide in a hole and cry ... but then the eye-brow-raisers would win. And we can't have that now can we :-)

So I am going to go on and enjoy creating (and secretly hope that NONE of my customers find this blog LOL). No, you may not like everything I post on here. Yes, I am going to have fun and post anyway. This may sound like everything about our store is bad. Don't worry, it isn't. I have met some wonderful people who all happily scrapbook in their own style without worrying about all the other peripheral agendas that surround them. And they are why I keep turning up for work each day.

So don't let other people tell you what you should be doing. Do what you know is right for your project and just enjoy it. It is only paper and glue after all :-)

Wednesday, 13 July 2011

This week has been chaotic and I have only just completed a layout based on Shimelle's sketch for this week. As soon as I saw the sketch I knew which photos I was going to use, but I was worried that the scraps I had left to work with wouldn't stretch far enough. The sketch this week used 4 small photos and lots of extras. What a challenge! Here is my version ...

I printed the photos out myself just so I had a guide, but I have only tacked them in place as I need to have some properly printed. I have found that our printer distorts the colour on smaller photos, but as the layout is mostly black and brown the colour didn't really matter.

I made this layout to go with one I had completed in a class with the very talented Mandy. (she doesn't blog much, but can turn her hand an just about anything!) I only had the scraps left over from that class to work with so it was a huge challenge for me.

Original layout from class

In the original class I cut the center of the black Bazzill too small and had to make it larger, hence the square frame in the matching layout. I also didn't have any pirate themed embelishments so I cut a Captain Hook on the Cricut and the skull on my Cuttlebug.

I had to add the background Bazzill and I found a scrap of Basic Grey 'Black Tie' to also go on the new layout. That made enough paper to work with. It is darker than I normally do but I like the final result. I smooched the cuttlebug skull to add some definition and added lots of black gems to tie the two together. I finished off with a Dusty Attic chipboard mini word 'treasure' at the top.

So that is Captain Hook and Mr Smee crossed off my list of photos from our trip. I wonder who I should do next?

Tuesday, 12 July 2011

Did anyone ever tell you that when life gives you lemons you make lemonade? Well it is cold here (coldest July day in 8 years yesterday!) and lemonade doesn't really make sense in the cold. So we made 'Lemon Diva' cupcakes with lemon frosting AND two jars of lemon butter!

It is school holidays here and this morning I told the kids they could bake IF they could agree on something to make using the ingredients we had in the cupboard. Who would have thought that it would take them almost half an hour to come to an agreement! But they did eventually without any fights or tantrums ... well almost. They are HUGE fans of Masterchef and we have Julie Goodwin's cookbook on our kitchen shelf. So they decided to make her famous 'Lemon Dive' cupcakes. If you click on the link you will find another link on that page to the recipe.

The Thinker cast himself as head chef and lead the way by reading the recipe. The Extrovert became the foot soldier and thoroughly enjoyed being the center of the kitchen. Meanwhile The Princess kept popping up demanding another job! She was very excited as this was the first time we have had a chance to use the silicone cups she got for Christmas. But they made the cupcakes without too many hiccups and they were delish! We had so much juice left over that we decided to also make lemon butter. 20min later I am not so sure that they still thought it was a good idea! Non-stop whisking for 20min is heard work. I think I shall try some on toast for breakfast in the morning. We also used the lemon butter recipe from Julie's book as I have never made it before.

I woke up this morning and was quietly checking my emails as I do every morning. I had an email from blogger as Mandy had left a message on my blog congratulating me on winning Shimelle's giveaway ... I think most of the house heard that I had won! LOL What a beautiful way to start the day.

Every Friday Shimelle gives away a prize and this week it was a gorgeous flower cabochon ring from Josephines Jewellery.

Boy some of her stuff is beautiful. I am particularly in love with this Verdigris Long Leaf Pearl Bracelet. To enter the prize draw this week you had to answer this question.

If you could chose any time period in which to live, which would it be?

My answer was very obvious is you knew me ...

I would go far enough into the future to where time travel is discovered. That way I could experience any period I felt like :-)

There are so many exciting developments in all the different eras that I would want to see them all! I shall now be eagerly watching my mail box for my lovely surprise.

Sunday, 10 July 2011

I had a few minutes spare today so I wanted to create a fun layout for my Family Recipe Album even though I don't yet have the details for the page. If I am going to get the album finished on time I need to have some blank pages ready to just insert the recipe and the story that goes with it. I pushed myself and made a pink page ... my least favourite colour! I started by just grabbing a few matching supplies and limited myself to just that. This is going to go in the dessert section and I have made two, one for each album.

Little Yellow Bicycle 'Cupcake Love' papers

I lightly tacked the white rectangles of card on the page so that I know where the information will go. Once I have it printed out, I can easily remove my white cards and replace them. I used lace, ribbons,

embellishments from the paper range, brads, thickers, and a few sheets of Bazzill to finish this layout. It only took me about 20min to put the page together, but I like it. I tied a knot in the ric-rac to put on the title and I loved how it formed a heart shape. Purely accidental!

Sometimes it is nice to see what we can do with only a few supplies and a few minutes! So another page for the recipe album is done. Oh, and my Great Aunt emailed me back and apparently the 'Mayonaise Cake' i spoke about in the previous post is absolutely delish and moist. So we should not judge a recipe by it's ingredients!

Wednesday, 6 July 2011

Tonight I am making a start on my Family Recipe Album. If you are wondering what I am talking about you can read about my new project here. My Great Aunt has sent me some old family recipies that she had, and reading through them today one shocked me ... a 'Mayonaise Cake'. YEP, you read that right, MAYO, in a cake!!!!! I don't even know if I am going to make one to try it. Have any of you ever made a cake with mayonaise????? Here is the recipe as it was given to me.

Mayonaise Cake

2c flour

2tsp soda

5tbs cocoa (sifted)

1c sugar

1c mayonaise

1c cold water

1 tsp vanilla

375F for 30-35 min

The only other information on the recipe was that it came from Dan O'Brian's Mom in 1948. Very strange. I think I shall have to email her and find out not only who Dan was but if this cake is any good!

I am heading off to a class tonight and I think I am going to use it as the title page in my cousins version of this Recipe Album.

Tuesday, 5 July 2011

The Extrovert loves to pose. Ask for a photo and out will pop a crazy pose, but always with his eyes closed! The pose in this picture was one of his favourites on this trip and appears in more than one photo. He is who he is, and we love him for it. My inspiration for this layout was Shimelle's sketch for this week.

It was too square for my photo so I changed the embellishments to be circles as The Extrovert doesn't fit into a box, he is the round peg that will NEVER be square!

The best part about sketches is that they are so easily adapted, and Shimelle's always have plenty of scope for your imagination. So here is my version of the sketch featuring The Extrovert outside the Rainforest Cafe in Disney Studios!

Basic Grey 'Dasher' papers

I used some old Basic Grey papers on this one. It was a Christmas range, but only the colours said Christmas and red and green were perfect for this photo. Parts of the circle paper were a bit too white for this layout so I inked bits and embossed with silver on random circles. It helped give it a more masculine effect.

Instead of adding additional smaller photos I made one of the spaces an embellishment and the other is my journaling. I wanted more of the silver to come through the layout so I embossed the edges of one of the layers. I also did this to the red background piece. I LOVE to emboss! Bits of wire finish off the tag.

The silver lacey strip was actually a cheap white gel sticker. I alcohol inked it and now it looks expensive. Isn't it wonderful to be able to change things! I cut up old Prima 'Say it with studs' swirls and put the larger one at the bottom and a small one at the top to help balance it out. The title is chipboard cut on my Cuttlebug using 'Hippie Chick'.

I knew the quote I wanted to use but couldn't remember it. So I googled "dance like no one is watching" and up it popped. I didn't know that it was a quote from Mark Twain but it summed up my feelings perfectly. I printed it on a scrap of Bazzill. Just a hint on using your scraps to print on. First print it out on a regular sheet of printer paper. Then take your scrap and stick it right on top of the printed design using double sided tape along the leading edge. Then run it back through the printer and print it again. The design will now print on your scrap!

I scrapped this layout years after the event and I wanted to leave my son a note from me. It is actually under the jounaling block and becomes visible when you swivel the circle. I signed and dated it so he will always know when I wrote it. Looking back at photos always makes you think of other things to say. I think that is why we should go back and scrap older photos again, but with a new take on them. As we reflect back on things our point of view often changes.